Do kids really count?

Once Gov. Huckabee finishes baiting the courts for the right-wing gallery, he can spend days on end doing a passable imitation of a good Democrat. Maybe it is in service of his presidential ambitions, in which case he finally gives political expediency a good name.

This week, the fate of the public schools, in the short term, seems to rest in the governor’s hands. He is going to act like a real governor and try to wring some compassion from flint-hearted lawmakers of his own party and get them to vote for a modest school-aid package crafted by Democratic leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives. After first telling legislators he wanted them to enact laws that would tell the Arkansas Supreme Court to butt out of school affairs, which he said were purely his and the legislature’s prerogatives, Huckabee pronounced the sums and methods of raising school aid that were developed by education committees to be progressive and just. He doesn’t want to see the state defy the Supreme Court order to produce a suitable school program for every child.

If he cannot turn around a few senators this week, the cause would seem to be lost. He will not call a special session, he says, unless there is a clear consensus in both houses for legislation. House leaders say they have a majority for the financing package, but the Senate is badly split. A few East Arkansas senators, notably Jim Luker of Wynne and Steve Bryles of Blytheville, argue for even more money to close the gap between rich and poor schools and the even larger chasm between the salaries of their teachers. They are persuasive and the Supreme Court order reinforces their case. It implied that the state should provide cost-of-living adjustments not merely in foundation aid but in all categorical programs, including those addressing the needs of poor kids, and that poor schools that were losing enrollment (and state aid) needed special attention to keep services up to par.

Others — Republicans mainly, but not altogether — want to give the schools much less, if anything at all. This week, some were still arguing pointlessly with the court decision that found the schools inadequately funded for the current budget cycle.

Every one of them ran as a champion of education and they are printing campaign cards this week saying they are friends of education. There won’t be room for elaboration. It is not a matter of economy, as they will argue, but of choices. The state fisc is accumulating vast surpluses, which if they do not go for the kids will be banked for pork projects to ensure re-election.

Blue Hog Report has some news on a Republican primary challenge of an incumbent legislator, Rep. Laurie Rushing, by Ernie Hinz of Hot Springs.

Republicans, including at least one from Arkansas, are talking about repealing the Dickey Amendment which prohibits gun research from a public health perspective. But none of them are yet willing to DO anything about it.

A rediscovered violin concerto brings an oft-forgotten composer into the limelight.

My colleagues John Ray and Jesse Bacon and I estimate, in the first analysis of its kind for the 2018 election season, that the president's waning popularity isn't limited to coastal cities and states. The erosion of his electoral coalition has spread to The Natural State, extending far beyond the college towns and urban centers that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. From El Dorado to Sherwood, Fayetteville to Hot Springs, the president's approval rating is waning.

Despite fierce protests from disabled people, the U.S. House voted today, mostly on party lines, to make it harder to sue businesses for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Of course Arkansas congressmen were on the wrong side.

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We're sad to report that Doug Smith has decided to retire. Though he's been listed as an associate editor on our masthead for the last 22 years, he has in fact been the conscience of the Arkansas Times. He has written all but a handful of our unsigned editorials since we introduced an opinion page in 1992.

Last week, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel became the first elected statewide official to express support for same-sex marriage. His announcement came days before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza is expected to rule on a challenge to the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Soon after, a federal challenge of the law is expected to move forward. McDaniel has pledged to "zealously" defend the Arkansas Constitution but said he wanted the public to know where he stood.

Remarking as we were on the dreariness of this year's election campaigns, we failed to pay sufficient tribute to the NRA, one of the most unsavory and, in its predictability, dullest of the biennial participants in the passing political parade.

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My colleagues John Ray and Jesse Bacon and I estimate, in the first analysis of its kind for the 2018 election season, that the president's waning popularity isn't limited to coastal cities and states. The erosion of his electoral coalition has spread to The Natural State, extending far beyond the college towns and urban centers that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. From El Dorado to Sherwood, Fayetteville to Hot Springs, the president's approval rating is waning.